


Necronomicon

by WarlordFelwinter



Series: Destiny / OC-centric [12]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Necronomicon, but it's the necronomicon so there is some gross wording and upsetting ideas, fair warning, fake grimoire, lovecraftian references, the general creepiness associated with lovecraft, there's not an archive warning for gross things, this is literally just me throwing destiny references into the necronomicon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:28:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13471764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarlordFelwinter/pseuds/WarlordFelwinter
Summary: A rewrite of the Necronomicon as a journal left by the mad Warlock Alhazred





	1. The Necronomicon

Deep within the Tower libraries, behind locked doors wherein reside the forbidden texts such as the journals of Toland the Shattered and the Prophecies of Osiris, there is a blood-stained tome bound in human skin. Few know of this book’s existence and fewer have read it. Only the Speaker and the Guardians of the Vanguard are allowed access to the forbidden texts. 

Within the pages of the gory tome, titled ‘Necronomicon’, are the ravings of the mad Warlock Alhazred. In his time, Alhazred was an influential Guardian. He was one of the founders of the practice of Thanatonautics and was briefly considered as a candidate for Warlock Vanguard alongside Osiris. He easily held sway over peoples of the City with his philosophical teachings and seemed an extremely intelligent and clear minded person. 

The Speaker became wary of his motives when Alhazred’s speakings began to tend toward the Darkness. He became obsessed with death and spent day and night engrossed in ancient texts, foregoing beneficial missions for the City in order to disappear into the deserts for days at a time, each time coming back more and more deranged and paranoid. He lost faith in the Traveler and the Light and hence was banished from the City. It was a close vote that nearly resulted in a death sentence for the Warlock and his Ghost, but the Consensus agreed on banishment. 

Alhazred has not been seen since and his whereabouts are unknown, but his journal, the aforementioned Necronomicon, was found by one of the Hidden and brought to the City, where it was locked away immediately for fear of other Guardians taking his insane ramblings as wisdom. 


	2. Howlings in the Desert

_You, risen of death by a dead power, who would seek the wisdom of hidden things and traverse the shadows between the stars, heed the teachings put down into these pages by one who has gone unseen before you that you may follow the harsh chanting of my voice across the windblown sands that obscure the tracks of my feet. Each of us who goes into the empty spaces of the solar system must walk alone, but where one has gone another may follow._

_Turn not your mind from the fears of the darkness, but embrace them as a friend. Let terror possess your body and course through your veins into your very “light”, this nameless power that raised you into the world and that calls itself better than the dark. Let it steal your judgement, your very reason. In the madness of the night, all sounds become articulate. One sure of themself, confident in their strength, aware of their rightful place, remains forever ignorant. Their mind is closed. They cannot learn in life and after the death of deaths there is no acquisition of knowledge, only unending certainty. The highest fulfillment of this sort of person is to be food for things that burrow and squirm, for in their mindless hunger they are pure, undefiled by reason, and their purity elevates them above the putrefying pride of sentient races._

_By writhing on your belly in abject terror you will rise up in awareness of truth; by the screams that fill the throat unsought is the mind purged of the corruption of faith. Believe in nothing. There is no purpose in birth or rebirth, no salvation in life, no reward after a final death. Leave the harsh lights of the City and its gibbering fools that put mindless trust and faith in a dead machine. Abandon hope and you shall become free, and with freedom acquire emptiness._

_The night things that hop and skitter and flit at the edges of the campfire glow exist only to teach, but no one can understand their words unless they have lost in fear the memory of their name. Now you will find the time to die. Once you are free of hope you must free yourself of life in order to see the truth. Those in the City call this experience Thanatonautics and condemn it with fear and thus remain blind. Two spirits will come to you in your death, as you lie watched over by your Ghost, and will lead you to the place within yourself that cannot be known but only felt. These spirits are Terror and Despair. Let them guide you into nightmares that follow one upon the other, like windblown grains of sand, until they cover over the markers of your mind. When you have lost yourself in the wasteland of unending nothingness, the night things will come._

_With hope utterly abandoned, all else will leave you, save only fear. Your name forgotten, your memories bereft of meaning, without desire or purpose and having no regret, you would utterly cease to exist and would become one with the greatness of the night were it not for fear. Let your terror be your standing place amid the sea of darkness. From it you cannot retreat for it is all that you are become. Pure fear is undifferentiated, a smoothness without line or color; hence a person in the extremity of terror is united with all terrified others; more than this, in the purity of terror they become one with all fearful creatures of the universe, both in this moment and in distant aeons of time, and in that unity wherein dwells the wisdom of all, their mind is opened, and the night things speak._

_Pain is terror of the body, and as the body is but a pallid reflection of the mind, so is pain of the flesh no more than a distant echo of the terror of dreams. Even so, do not despise your pain, for it has its function. Pain anchors the mind to flesh. In the absence of pain, the mind would fly up and become lost in the spaces between the stars, and darkness would consume you. Just as the mind can lose all aspects of itself, but will never cease to fear, so can the body lose all strength and sensations and longing, but will always feel pain. While there is life, there is pain, and fear continues even when life is no more. Do not bid your Ghost relieve your pain. This machine exists to pull you back from death that you may experience it again. If it attempts to draw you back from these teachings, leave it behind._

_Despair is not separate from terror but is consequence of the abatement of fear. When terror fills the mind there is room for nothing else, but when it withdraws in part, as it must do, for it ebbs and flows even as the tides of the seas, then the mind is left cleansed and empty, and this condition is called despair. In despair there is a void that yearns to be filled up. Let the night things fill it with their whisperings, and in this way grow wise in the secret ways of these worlds, and others yet unknown to us._

_Of all pains, hunger is the most useful since it gnaws unceasingly, like the worm in the tomb. It is the gateway upon an emptiness vast and endless; no matter the quantity or kind of food, it is never filled up. All living creatures are but embodiments of hunger, even us who live within undeath, our physical hunger sated by the Ghosts that claim dominion over our souls. Bid your Ghost let you feel hunger. A human is a hollow tube when left to nature, without the meddlings of machinery, ingesting food at one end and excreting waste at the other. How is it possible for a human to be other than empty? To speak nothing of the exo kind who are empty at all times, without even the brief fulfillment of food to sate their hunger. As it is for the body, so it is also for the mind. The natural condition of the mind is emptiness. All efforts to fill it are temporary diversions that fail to deny this truth._

_To learn arcane wisdom is the simplest of tasks. Purge the mind with terror; purge the body with pain and hunger. Take yourself out in the empty spaces of the our worlds that express in their limited way the same qualities as the empty spaces between the stars. The things that dwell in these spaces are ever watchful. They exist only to teach. After terror comes despair, and in despair the language of the shadows is intelligible. As you empty your mind of self, the night creatures fill it with their wisdom._

_The wisest of creatures is the black beetle that lives on the dung of others. Dead food is better than food that is living, since its essence is nearer to the ultimate state of decay to which we all tend. From corruption arises new life. Fill yourself with corruption and from it you shall be reborn again, even as the fungi arise and glow with radiance on the faces of the dead who have rested in their tombs a span of years. Emulate the beetles and the worms, and learn their teachings. Eat of the dead, lest you be consumed by the emptiness. The living cannot teach the dead, but the dead can instruct the living._

_In the wasteland dwell those things that cannot abide the light of reason. Even as a human is a creature of the day, and ceases to know themself during the darkness, so do these things of the void cease to articulate their identity during the hours of the sun. Do not think I speak of those humans who were turned by the void into those creatures that call themselves “awoken”. They know nothing of the darkness nor have they awoken anything within themselves. Do not fall under their teachings. They play at superior knowledge of the universe, but exist only to put themselves on a pedestal of their own falsities. I speak of creatures of the empty spaces that few have seen and escaped with their lives. They sleep by day and wake by night to feed. The terror of sentient beings is their nourishment and their excrement is higher wisdom. The dung of these things may only be consumed when the mind is made empty by terror and is in a receptive state of despair. Unless the mind be perfectly purged, their excrement will be vomited up and lost. The exquisite rapture of hunger retains all foods, and extracts nourishment even from the husks of beetles and the castings of worms. Ingest wisdom with the darkness, and sleep by day._

_Separate yourself from humanity and Guardian-kind, for what use have you for these fools and their yammerings? In life they serve no function, and in death they are only food for the crawling creatures. Take yourself apart, embrace your fear, and listen to the darkness. Your teachers will come; as they appear before you, consume their wisdom. Grind their chitinous cases between your teeth and partake of their essence. The whirring of their wings and the rubbing of their legs is music. Consume all, even the other things that approach, those that have no bodies but only teeth and eyes that gleam in shadow. The crawling things instruct the body, and the shadow shapes teach the mind, but the wisdom of both must be consumed._

_There is only hunger in the universe. Devour everything._


	3. Rapture of the Empty Space

_The desert known as Roba el Khaliyeh is a lover of the dead and a hater of all things that have life. The creatures that dwell in the desiccated wastes of this Empty Space imitate the dead in all possible ways, and thereby steal life from the dryness. What are the qualities of the dead? It should be made clear I speak of the truly dead. Those who will not be raised again, not those like us incongruous beasts of undeath. They are cold and lie without motion within the earth, hidden from the burning sun; their skin is hard and black; at night they rise and wander far in search of nourishment to satisfy their ceaseless hunger and thirst. So it is with the living things that struggle to remain alive in the land of the dead. They lie beneath the earth, in caves or covered over with sand, during the heat of the day; they move little or not at all to conserve their fluids; their skin is hard and dark, their eyes dry and glittering jewels; only under the light of the moon dare they venture forth to hunt. _

_ One who would cross the wilderness of stone and sand must emulate the dead, even as do the creatures that live in the waste, for only by becoming as they are may they survive. At the setting of the sun, arise and go in quest of nourishment. Water is more precious than food, so always seek water, and food will cross your path without the need to look for it. The life of the desert is an endless quest for water that renders other quests meaningless. When the paling of the east announces the dawn, dig a hollow in the sand and cover your body, or huddle in a cleft between rocks that is forever in shadow. Lie as one dead, and sleep out the day. Follow this whether you haunt the deserts of Earth or Mars or the other empty and death filled places of our system. The laws of the desert are the same.  _

_ Seek the deepest depths between the rocks in the low places of the land where the sands have fallen inward, for there will be found moisture. Even when it is too attenuated to serve the needs of life directly, it may be had by sucking the juice of crawling things that concentrate the dampness within their shells. Corpses newly buried along the roads are fat with water. The brain remains wet for weeks, as does the marrow of the bones. The blood of a hunter hawk is good, but the blood of a carrion bird may carry disease that cripples or kills the unwary. More wholesome is the flesh of serpents and worms, sweet to the taste and a glut to the belly.  _

_ In the deepest pits where water drips and pools, there flourishes a certain fungus that may be known by its color, for it is the green mingled with yellow of the pus from a newly lanced boil. This growth emanates a faint radiance that seems bright to eyes accustomed to the blackness of caves. It is the length of half a forefinger, but from it emerge longer stalks containing pods of spores that break open with a faint sound, like the crackle of a brush fire, when disturbed. Among this living carpet that covers the rocks and walls and roofs of caverns live small spiders of the purest white. As they move among the stalks, they brush them with their legs and cause them to break open and spread their seed upon the damp air, so that in the silence deep beneath the earth there is an endless soft crackle that resembles stifled laughter.  _

_ To consume three of the white spiders transforms the power of sight, allowing demons and shades of the dead that wander the desert after the setting of the sun to be seen clearly with eyes, though these wraiths pass otherwise unseen. This second sight is available only to organic beings. Exo kind will not have access to the secrets of the dead, as their brains are built of metal and are not suggestible to the subtle machinations of the arcane corners of the universe. To those of flesh, three spiders and three alone must be eaten. Two is insufficient; four causes vomiting and sickness that persists for several days. Three yields merely a lightness and spinning in the head that is not so severe as to inhibit walking. It is the spores from the pods fallen upon the spiders that produce the second type of sight. By themselves the spores have no power, but when mingled with the secretions on the back and legs of the spiders they acquire this potency.  _

_ To sight fortified with this strange meat, the shades of the desert stand forth from the rocks and dunes with the whiteness of candle wax. Near the burial sites of nomadic humans or Fallen may be seen  lares who retain their form after death. These are mindless vessels that stand or stagger upon the earth above their graves, moving in circles or arcs but never venturing more than a dozen paces from the mound where their putrefying flesh lies buried. They have one use alone: to identify the place of burial when the desert dwellers have attempted to conceal the place from ghouls and grave robbers. No matter how well concealed the surface of the grave, the  lar of the corpse stands watch above it.  _

_ When a grave is opened, the shade that is bound to it strives to slay the violator by seeking their throat or heart with its fingernails, or sometimes with its teeth, all the while emitting a faint keening cry that is easily mistaken for the sigh of the night breeze. Since these  lares lack material force, they may be ignored without harm. They vanish the moment the brain, heart, or liver is removed from the corpse, though the cutting of the dead flesh and the removal of smaller portions of the body is not sufficient to dispel their presence. It is best to shatter the skull with a stone when first the corpse is exposed; having vanquished the troubling shade, the remaining viscera and organs may be handled and used without distraction.  _

_ There is another type of spirit, common in the rocky hills, that resembles a large wingless bat, but possess the hindquarters and legs of a wild dog. Its mouth is unnaturally large for its size and filled with curved white teeth, like the bones of a fish, and its forepaws hairless and slender with dark skin and elongated nails. These creatures, that in their own tongue call themselves  chaklah’i , move with great rapidity at a loping run across the sands, and hunt in packs any living thing that they find alone and unprotected in the waste at night. Their method of attack is to surround their prey so closely that their insubstantial bodies replace the air itself, so that the uncomprehending prey slowly smothers to death. Only then can they consume its vital essences, for they eat the dead and cannot abide the essences of the living. They consume the spirit of the flesh, not the flesh itself, but after they have eaten, the flesh holds no nourishment for the living.  _

_ One possessed of the power of the second sight by consumption of the fungoidal spiders is able to make a pact with the  chaklah’i **,** who much prefer to feed on corpses dead for several days than upon the bodies of the newly slain. These demons have not the physical force to move the ground protecting bodies that have been buried, but if a person shall move the stones and sand for them and allow them to feed unhindered, in exchange they will reveal secret places where treasures of various kinds lay hidden, or repeat knowledge long lost to the world. If it should chance that they seek to commit murder on the one with whom they have formed a pact, as commonly occurs, the utterance of the name of the guardian of the gates in the language of the Old Ones sends them scattering like dried leaves upon the wind. They pose no danger to any who hold the power of this name, and may be useful as guides in the Empty Space.  _

_ These things speak not as we speak, by striking the air with our breath, but inwardly, as a thought that echoes within the mind, as your Ghost speaks to you. Their intellect is weak, but they remember all they have ever seen or heard, and they endure far longer than a mortal being. Light they cannot abide, nor the camps and habitations of the living. Our voices are painful to them, and they fly from the sound of laughter.  _

_ With the faculty of the second sight, things that never possessed life of their own, but merely contained or conveyed life, may be clearly seen in the darkness across the sands. Fallen roads stand forth like ribbons of silver, and the domes and towers of towns long fallen to decay and forgotten rise against the starry horizon. These ghostly structures glow most bright under the energizing rays of the moon, but are dim when the moon is in its dark phase or not yet risen. They are most clear in distance but when approached waver and grow dim, until at last they fade utterly as the foot extends to cross their thresholds. By such shadows may be traced the wanderings of ancient peoples and their places of dwelling.  _

_ Upon the open desert are gateways in the form of whirling columns of iridescent dust. In the day they resemble dancing pillars, and by night glowing spires. They may be opened only at certain times, when the rays of the stars conspire to unlock them. Their opening is by means of phrases chanted in a forgotten tongue, the words of which have geometric forms in space possessing length, breadth, and height. The  chaklah’i know the words but do not understand their meaning or use. For a gift of blackened and putrefying flesh they may be induced to repeat them.  _

_ Such are the several beauties of  Roba el Khaliyeh _ _, which is death to one for so long as they remain alive, but once they have become as the dead, emulating the ways of the dead, it is as nurturing and loving as a parent toward their first child. Nor is it possible to dwell in the wasteland without learning its ways, for knowledge is rewarding but ignorance severely punished, and those who survive instruction become wise._


	4. The Eaters of the Dead

Nomadic peoples crossing the desert must bury their dead along the way, for in the heat a body soon putrefies, and in the span of two days no one could bear to stand near it, and no beast would carry it upon its back. The only exception is made when a person of importance dies on the journey, for the family of the corpse has the means to cause it to be wrapped in rags saturated in honey, which has the property of inhibiting decay. The honey is used to fill the mouth, nostrils, ears, eye sockets, and other vents of the body, and provided every opening is sealed, the flesh may be preserved as it was in life for several weeks. This practice is not reserved for humans; the Fallen have been observed conducting similar practices on their own notable dead. 

One alone in the wasteland learns to follow the tracks of the roving bands, and to recognize the graves of those who have died along the way. The carcasses of beasts are no use for food since these are swiftly picked clean to the bones by creatures of the desert, but the corpses of beings of society are protected by the earth and stones piled above them. The hungry traveler soon learns to trust their nose to guide them to their repast, and the glowing shade that stands above the place of internment, so clearly visible to the second sight, is a sure sign that their belly will soon be filled. You must be quick if you are to reach a fresh grave before it is found by the eaters of the dead, for they are adept at this hunt and rarely let a body rest in the earth above the passage of a day and night. 

These ghouls are seldom seen by our race, and are almost unknown apart from fables that frightened children long ago before the so called ‘Golden Age’ drove such stories into the dust of history. But in the deeper reaches of the desert they are not so timid of discovery, particularly when their only observer is a solitary wanderer who has the same purpose as their own. They are small of stature, with slender arms and legs but rounded bodies possessing distended bellies, and their naked skin is black, so that they are almost invisible to the ordinary sight. Standing no taller than the elbow of an average human, they appear at first impression to be a band of children, save that they move silently, with their shoulders hunched and their clawed hands brushing the sands, their glittering black eyes alert for danger and their yellow teeth, like those of a dog, exposed between their parted lips, for they snuff the air with both nose and open mouth to catch the scent of death. 

One untroubled by fear may easily defend themself against five or six of these creatures with only a large stone or a thighbone for a weapon, but they are attracted by the sound of conflict and quickly gather in larger numbers so that it becomes prudent to retreat and leave them enjoyment of the prize. Never do they consume the flesh of the living, yet they know how to uncover a corpse and how to bury it, and a creature they slay they cover with earth for a day and then return for their feast. 

They must contend not only with desert foxes and other scavengers of the night, but with the chaklah’i who deprive the corpse of its nourishing virtue unless driven away. The chaklah’i and the eaters of the dead are ancient foes well accustomed to dealing with each other, and for the most part they observe the pleasantry of respecting the claim of whichever race first discovers the grave; sometimes the ghouls will leave portions of the corpse for the chaklah’i to feed upon, and they in turn will not draw virtue from the bones of the dead, but will allow it to remain in the marrow for the gratification of the ghouls. 

The ghouls of the desert are smaller of body than those who lurk at the outskirts of cities, near burial places. Lack of food and the harshness of the land stunt their growth and render them wizened of limb yet tenacious of life, enabling them to endure hardships that would kill their brethren who dwell near the places of society. In spite of these differences they are a single race, sharing the same language and even the same folklore. 

Those of the desert relate among themselves the ancient tale of Noureddin Hassan, a noble human householder of Bussorah, who made a pact with a ghoul of the city named in his own language G’nar’ka, so that in return for allowing his beloved wife to lie in her grave unmolested, the man agreed to murder eight strangers on successive nights and provide the ghoul with their corpses. The murders being discovered after Hassan had killed seven of his fellow citizens, the unfortunate man took his own life and so fulfilled his oath. This tale was not unknown to ancient human storytellers, but for the eaters of the dead it has a special meaning, since they revere the sanctity of a bargain above all other bonds, and once having agreed to a service they fulfill it without fail. 

Another fable they tell of this same city ghoul concerns the steathful robbery of a sacred tomb beneath a mosque during the fast of Ramadan, and how the gluttony of the ghoul brought him into conflict with the ancient human worshippers, but it is too extended to relate here. G’nar’ka is a kind of hero to their race, whose exploits form the subject for many tales. 

The traveler is advised to make peace with the eaters of the dead by offering them the greater part of any corpse unearth along the roads. This is no keen sacrifice since dead flesh does not remain wholesome long in the desert, and no one regardless of hunger could consume more than a small portion of the corpse before it became too foul to retain in the stomach. In return for this display of grace the creatures will cease their attacks, for they are not warlike by nature and only contend over food, which is ever scarce in the wastes. 

They speak in dry whispers in their own language, which is unknown beyond their race, but they have learned enough of our tongue and that of the Fallen from the conversations at the campfires of nomads to make their meaning known. Of the old places of the desert their knowledge is complete. For countless generations they have sought their meat across the sands, and unearthed stranger things than the dead from beneath the stones. What the chaklah’i do not know, the ghouls remember, and what cannot be learned by questioning one race will be gained from the other. Neither has any use for hidden tombs or ancient cities or buried gold and silver, but they will trade this knowledge for flesh. 

Within my own many interactions with them, I once purchased from the eaters of the dead the location of the valley of the lost city of Irem of the many pillars, for the extraordinary price of the body of a beautiful maiden of a high family of one of the remote human settlements that still exist outside the City underneath the Traveler, that had been wrapped in honey after succumbing to the bite of a serpent. Ghouls fear to approach the campfires of travelers lest they be slain by the guards, but they learned of the death from words overheard spoken by members of the family, and I among them was bold and clever enough to steal into the camp shortly before dawn and carry off the sweetly dripping corpse when the camp still lay asleep, yet after those paid to sit up and guard the corpse during the night had retired to their blankets. 

The body was not consumed that night, for it was too fresh, having been preserved by the honey, and the hour was late, but I performed the same service as that of the mourners by sitting with the corpse while it rotted in the sun and was visited by beetles and flies, after having carefully unwrapped it and scraped its skin clean of its sticky, golden sweat. The next night it was eaten with pleasure, and the secret of the valley of Irem was revealed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (someone who has read the necro might notice i skipped a chapter and it's really just because i didn't feel like writing about sexy demons and that chapter relies heavily on bodily deformations that never happened to my warlock (b/c i'm assuming no one in the consensus is fucked up enough to cut off his nose, ears, and dick) but if guardian-alhazred was ever visited by a lust demon it was disappointed because he simply doesn't give two shits. he has better things to do. like eat dead bodies.)


End file.
